NEW YORK, 1 October
2002 - What languages does New York speak? Does speech embody
culture? Does it function as an indicator of identity and vehicle of
understanding in a city of several million people? German artist Karin
Sander attempted to answer these questions when she asked 250 New
Yorkers, each speaking a different language, and representing a wide
range of ethnic backgrounds and nationalities, to donate a word in
their mother tongue that had a special personal significance for them.

Each of the words was translated into every one of the other
249 languages in the project including languages as far apart as Efik,
Patois, Malayalam, Chickasaw and Sulawesi. A total of 62,500 words
were thus generated, from which Karin Sander fashioned an art work
analogous to the stock market listings in the business section of The
New York Times. In fact, Sander's global sculpture in words,
entitled wordsearch, uses the power of the newspaper as a
medium-and also reproduces its temporary nature. Her high-circulation,
mass media, one-day work of art will appear in the Business Day
Section of The New York Times on 4 October 2002 and is
available in print on the same day in both Frankfurt and New York.

Wordsearch
is Karin Sander's art work for the Deutsche Bank's art series Moment.
The wordsearch catalogue with background information appeared
on 29 September as a Deutsche Bank advertising supplement in the
Sunday edition of The New York Times Magazine.

The
wordsearch edition and sixty-four page catalogue with
photographs by Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger can be ordered
online at http://www.moment-art.com
for € 10.